Abortion and Spirituality

5 Spiritual Weights of Abortion

by | Apr 17, 2017

Abortion is rarely an “easy” choice for women, despite a woman’s behavior when encountering pro-life people who are praying or protesting at abortion clinics. By the time women arrive at a clinic, there typically have been multiple discussions with either abortion influencers or those who hope to deter that choice. Confusion is often part of the emotional mix a woman encounters which often leads to anxiety.

In departing an abortion clinic, typically one is dead and the other is wounded. It makes no difference that the abortion was a “legal” choice. The end result is the death of a living child. Because that life was voluntarily surrendered, abortion has a different impact on a woman’s heart at a spiritual level.

While many report feeling relieved and positive about their abortion choice afterwards, there may still be moments of deep pain and clarity. Thoughts and memories can flash into a woman’s heart unexpectedly, causing deep confusion. Perhaps they arrive on anniversary dates of the abortion procedure or due date of the aborted child.

Painful memories can also be triggered by a song that was popular around the time of the abortion or even by noises of the abortion procedure (vacuum, dentist drill, etc.). Seeing pregnant women or children near the age of an aborted child can leave the post-abortive person feeling unsettled.

Many times these reminders are batted away through the use of drugs or alcohol. Some seek out a sexual relationship for a potential comfort. Rarely do post-abortive women draw the connecting line between these behaviors and a past abortion decision simply due silence of the post-abortive audience as well as the lack of research on abortion’s impact.

Difficult thoughts and truths can canvas a woman’s mind and soul after abortion. Abortion’s hormonal displacement make women more vulnerable to depression, anxiety and other post-traumatic stress disorders, which can be deeply spiritual in nature.

Here are five common spiritual impacts that often result after an abortion choice:

Postpartum Abortion Depression – The shift in pregnancy hormones streaming through a woman’s body after abortion often impact the spiritual mindset. These hormones flow through the bloodstream and into the brain, impacting thoughts. The chemical changes that result after abortion have yet to be studied but research on those who have experienced miscarriage or stillborn birth outline the roller coaster of emotions many experience 2-4 weeks after a pregnancy is lost.

Hopelessness – Many women can come to miss their child at a spiritual level. They discover that they had a far more powerful connection to them than they ever realized possible. Others can disengage from feelings of loss by using other coping methods, like drugs and alcohol, to numb those thoughts.

Many women reach a point of realizing their abortion resulted in a loss. In understanding their child will never return to life, unexpected sadness and regret can result. Hopelessness can then make a deep spiritual impact when the mother realizes she can never find that child again on Earth. Many experience suicidal thoughts in wanting to go to heaven and hold their child at last.

Indelible Memories – Pregnancy hormones, like Oxytocin, can take nearly four weeks to dissipate after a child’s placenta is amputated from the uterus. These hormones, designed to encourage bonding at delivery, often impact the spiritual heart in making the abortion experience very vivid. That often results in providing the mother with indelible memories that can be relived over and over again.

These difficult-to-forget memories can circle in a woman’s spiritual soul over the years, reminding them of many aspects of this choice. These include:

  • The drama surrounding the pregnancy test and processing other people’s recommendations either for or against the abortion option
  • The overall trauma of making such a life and death decision
  • The messaging of the abortion clinics protestersthat they passed in front of the clinic
  • Waiting in the clinic before the abortion takes place as these locations are often crowded by other deeply emotional and disraught men and women
  • Painful sounds and/or screams of other women as they endure their own painful abortions in a nearby room
  • The procedure itself, which includes: the treatment of the doctors and nurses, the coldness of the stirrups, the sound of the vacuum or other machinery
  • Their time in the recovery room where pain and bleeding begins and often involves sitting among other weeping and upset women
  • How others treated them after they emerged from this procedure

Real Rejection – Anyone that was involved in the abortion decision can be impacted spiritually afterwards. Abortion persuaders include friends, family and/or the potential father of the baby. A pro-choice perspective among abortion influencers can increase the spiritual impact because many refuse to consider that abortion could ever be a WRONG choice with negative consequences.

Due to this inability to see abortion with any negative consequences, abortion persuaders are rarely sympathetic to the resulting emotional and spiritual pain afterwards. Spoken words of grief are often met with futile points like, “It’s all in the past.  You did the right thing! Stop crying!”

The lack of emotional support for honestly expressed feelings can make the woman feel rejected as she perceived she would have their support through any consequential emotional and spiritual angst. She can then feel unlovable and isolated. Many couples break up after abortion due to these variables. Abortion is not the glue that holds people together. It often tears them apart.

Fear – Once a post-abortive women enters the isolation phase, she can perceive she must protect her abortion secret by distancing herself from any associated friends.  But deep emotions and grief are difficult to forget forever. She can then fear future friends would reject her if they discover her abortion truth.

Post-abortive women often fear God’s response as well. The greatest fear is that God will not allow them to become pregnant again or that He will rob them of living children. Many become overprotective of their children, not realizing that God does not punish us but abortion can have physical consequences that results in infertility or other physical problems.

Thankfully, God can redeem and heal any spiritual impact, as written in Romans 5:8-9 NIV – God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him. 

If you, or someone you love, is encountering the spiritual impact of abortion, Godly help is available. Visit Her Choice to Heal to learn more about this pain and begin your journey to healing. Our team at Ramah International is here to help connect you to local abortion recovery ministry programs that can resolve this pain. There is no sin that God cannot remedy, even abortion.

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